http://boingboing.net/2014/09/09/house-with-a-supersonic-jet-in.html/feed0Room tiled with worn keyboard keyshttp://boingboing.net/2014/09/04/wall-tiled-with-worn-keyboard.html
http://boingboing.net/2014/09/04/wall-tiled-with-worn-keyboard.html#commentsFri, 05 Sep 2014 05:00:50 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=329149
Sarah Frost's 2010 "QWERTY" installation at NYC's PPOW gallery was a pair of beautiful, overwhelming walls of keyboard keys, shrived from the keyboards and tiled from floor to ceiling.]]>
Sarah Frost's 2010 "QWERTY" installation at NYC's PPOW gallery was a pair of beautiful, overwhelming walls of keyboard keys, shrived from the keyboards and tiled from floor to ceiling.

This will be SARAH FROST's first time exhibiting in New York. Like Munson and Robson, Frost scavenges her materials from items she can find either at garage sales or garbage bins. Creating a second life for these objects is what interests Frost, as each object carries traces of its previous life. In Debris, Frost will install huge sculptures lining the walls of the entrance gallery, completely made out of keys from cast off keyboards discarded by an array of users from individuals and small businesses to financial institutions, government offices and Fortune 500 companies. Each key has a unique history and bears the imprint of the thousands of taps by countless users. Frost hopes to convey both the material effects of consumer culture and its connection to human mortality.

http://boingboing.net/2014/09/04/wall-tiled-with-worn-keyboard.html/feed0Riding around Detroit's derelict Packard plant on a homemade dirt-bikehttp://boingboing.net/2014/01/22/riding-around-detroits-derel.html
http://boingboing.net/2014/01/22/riding-around-detroits-derel.html#commentsThu, 23 Jan 2014 04:00:09 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=281905
A reader writes, "In late October, we shot some video in Detroit's abandoned Packard plant. The reasons included, to test a motorcycle I built, and also to practice flying our drone.]]>

A reader writes, "In late October, we shot some video in Detroit's abandoned Packard plant. The reasons included, to test a motorcycle I built, and also to practice flying our drone. This is not a closed course, and not a professional rider. We were just looking to have some fun. Please enjoy."

http://boingboing.net/2014/01/22/riding-around-detroits-derel.html/feed0Abandoned and hidden tube stations beneath London.http://boingboing.net/2013/12/03/abandoned-and-hidden-tube-stat.html
http://boingboing.net/2013/12/03/abandoned-and-hidden-tube-stat.html#commentsWed, 04 Dec 2013 04:14:11 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=271891
Tom writes, "Subterranean London is a strange and fascinating world, a labyrinth of underground tunnels that range from Victorian sewers to wartime bunkers.]]>
Tom writes, "Subterranean London is a strange and fascinating world, a labyrinth of underground tunnels that range from Victorian sewers to wartime bunkers. Among them is the famous London Underground network, known as the Tube due to the shape of its deep level tunnels. The network boasts around 40 ghost stations, from including entire stations that closed decades ago as well as disused platforms hidden behind iron gates in still operational hubs. This article looks at 13 of London's most impressive abandoned underground stations."

If you like this, check out Peter Laurie's classic Beneath the City Streets, a comprehensive list of subterranean shelters, bunkers, tunnels, and tubes (I drew on it heavily for Pirate Cinema).

To a pedestrian walking through Whitechapel, nothing remains to indicate where St Mary’s Station once stood. Flattened by a German bomb during WWII, while people cowered on the disused platforms below, the remains of the building were broken down and carted off in the ’40s, leaving no trace of the former entrance. Below the Earth though, it’s a different story. Closed down in 1938 and largely bricked up during the Blitz, St Mary’s nonetheless survives – a collection of grim, graffiti-encrusted corridors and tracks leading nowhere. In the 70-odd years since its abandonment, TFL have routinely repurposed various bits of the line, leaving very little to mark the resting place of this old East End station. What does remain is cold and bleak and difficult to access. However, a tiny portion still remains visible to those travelling on the District Line: an old connecting line known as St Mary’s Curve can just about be glimpsed when arriving at Aldgate station from the Western side.

http://boingboing.net/2013/12/03/abandoned-and-hidden-tube-stat.html/feed0Abandoned Santa parks of the worldhttp://boingboing.net/2013/11/10/abandoned-santa-parks-of-the-w.html
http://boingboing.net/2013/11/10/abandoned-santa-parks-of-the-w.html#commentsSun, 10 Nov 2013 15:10:40 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=267363
All around the world, there are abandoned Santa Claus parks -- Christmas-themed amusement parks that passed their prime and shut their gates.]]>
All around the world, there are abandoned Santa Claus parks -- Christmas-themed amusement parks that passed their prime and shut their gates. Atlas Obscura did a deep trawl through Flickr and other online photo repositories and rounded up a gallery of amazing pictures of decaying, unloved Christmas parks from every corner of the globe.

http://boingboing.net/2013/11/10/abandoned-santa-parks-of-the-w.html/feed0Kazakhstan's decaying Soviet space muralshttp://boingboing.net/2013/10/24/kazakhstans-decaying-soviet.html
http://boingboing.net/2013/10/24/kazakhstans-decaying-soviet.html#commentsFri, 25 Oct 2013 02:54:17 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=263877
Esquire Kazakhstan features photos of the country's decaying Soviet space murals, which do not have protected status, and are coming to bits.]]>
Esquire Kazakhstan features photos of the country's decaying Soviet space murals, which do not have protected status, and are coming to bits. They're still towering, heroic Soviet Realist paeans to space travel, sorrowful as they may be.

With more and more cinemas in Russia losing out to multiplexes, photographer Sergey Novikov sought to capture the old buildings in their new incarnations — sometimes abandoned, sometimes used for discos and fairs or taken over by Jehovah's Witnesses.

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With more and more cinemas in Russia losing out to multiplexes, photographer Sergey Novikov sought to capture the old buildings in their new incarnations — sometimes abandoned, sometimes used for discos and fairs or taken over by Jehovah's Witnesses. Breathless was shot in Moscow and St Petersburg between 2010 and 2011 by Novikov, a graduate of the Rodchenko Moscow School of Photography and Multimedia. "I prefer an engrossing film to disgusting popcorn," he says. "I don't mind shifting about in a squeaky chair, soaking in the atmosphere of an old cinema. Unfortunately, the films have already left them."

http://boingboing.net/2013/07/29/overgrown-abandoned-rollercoa.html/feed0Red call-box graveyardhttp://boingboing.net/2013/07/12/red-call-box-graveyard.html
http://boingboing.net/2013/07/12/red-call-box-graveyard.html#commentsFri, 12 Jul 2013 19:10:02 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=242101
Last February, Chevalier von Windsor posted a bunch of gorgeous, amazing photos from the UK's phone booth graveyard, near the village of Carlton Miniott (scroll right to the bottom).]]>
Last February, Chevalier von Windsor posted a bunch of gorgeous, amazing photos from the UK's phone booth graveyard, near the village of Carlton Miniott (scroll right to the bottom). The contrast between the normally shiny and proud red call-boxes and these dusty, decaying corpses makes the photos work.
]]>http://boingboing.net/2013/07/12/red-call-box-graveyard.html/feed0Photos of ruined and rotting themeparks around the worldhttp://boingboing.net/2013/06/21/photos-of-ruined-and-rotting-t.html
http://boingboing.net/2013/06/21/photos-of-ruined-and-rotting-t.html#commentsFri, 21 Jun 2013 16:59:29 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=237573
IO9's Vincze Miklós has collected a marvellous gallery of photos from abandoned and rotting themeparks around the world. Several of these have been featured here before, while others are entirely new to me.]]>
IO9's Vincze Miklós has collected a marvellous gallery of photos from abandoned and rotting themeparks around the world. Several of these have been featured here before, while others are entirely new to me. The Katrina-wrecked Six Flags park in Louisiana and Walt Disney World's sadly abandoned Discovery Island are both especially compelling in their graceful ruin.

http://boingboing.net/2013/06/21/photos-of-ruined-and-rotting-t.html/feed9Mouldering city built of bread is a metaphor for Earth without humanshttp://boingboing.net/2013/05/31/mouldering-city-built-of-bread.html
http://boingboing.net/2013/05/31/mouldering-city-built-of-bread.html#commentsSat, 01 Jun 2013 01:15:52 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=233474
Swedish artist Johanna Mårtensson created this installation depicting a cityscape made of bread in 2009, and photographed it as it decayed, creating a series of pictures representing the destiny of all human folly come the day that we make ourselves extinct and vanish from the face of the Earth:

I was inspired by an article about how well the earth would do without us.

]]>
Swedish artist Johanna Mårtensson created this installation depicting a cityscape made of bread in 2009, and photographed it as it decayed, creating a series of pictures representing the destiny of all human folly come the day that we make ourselves extinct and vanish from the face of the Earth:

I was inspired by an article about how well the earth would do without us. Within 500 years all buildings would be half fallen or fallen, perfect homes for animals and plants. The forrest would soon grow in cities. After hand buildings as well as pollutions would be taken care of by bacterias and micro-organisms. An ufo that came here in a couple of of hundred thousand years would not see many signs of that a gang of primates ones thought that they where the lords of the planet.

http://boingboing.net/2013/05/31/mouldering-city-built-of-bread.html/feed19What happens when you forget pizzas in the oven for weekshttp://boingboing.net/2013/05/11/what-happens-when-you-forget-p.html
http://boingboing.net/2013/05/11/what-happens-when-you-forget-p.html#commentsSat, 11 May 2013 21:44:42 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=229698
A friend of redditor BigBoppinBill forgot some pizzas in the oven for "a few weeks." The result? A kind of glorious fungal jellyfish.]]>
A friend of redditor BigBoppinBill forgot some pizzas in the oven for "a few weeks." The result? A kind of glorious fungal jellyfish.

This calls to mind the timeless wisdom of the Jazz Butcher's classic, loony, over-the-top song, Caroline Wheeler's Birthday Present: "Do you know what happens when you leave a fish in an elevator?/You don't?/Well, here's a clue/Fish is biodegradable/THAT MEANS IT ROTS."

When it opened in 1969 as Kulturpark Planterwald, it was the "only constant entertainment park in the GDR, and the only such park in either East or West Berlin". However, the Berlin Senate did not seem to have provided for enough parking space... which is quite silly, all things considered. Plus, the forest around the park was deemed to be doomed from the impact of visiting crowds. In any case, the socialist and then private owners were left with a bunch of debt and the place got suspended in limbo... But the story does not end there (read on).

Jesse Brown sez, "My uncle, the amazing photographer Robert Burley, captured the death
of analog photography: the demolition of Kodak plants, the rapid
downfall of the film photography industry, the sudden obsolescence of
neighbourhood photo shops and subway photo booths. Naturally, he did so on film.
His book, Disappearance of Darkness, was just released, and some of
the gorgeous, haunting images are featured today on CNN's website."
]]>

Jeffrey sez, "Because there aren't enough things to be sad about in the world.
Behold, a once-glorious attic full of books falling victim to entropy and vandalism.

]]>

Jeffrey sez, "Because there aren't enough things to be sad about in the world.
Behold, a once-glorious attic full of books falling victim to entropy and vandalism.
I don't know the real story behind this, but I know a sad sight when I see it."

http://boingboing.net/2012/10/11/panorama-of-a-despoiled-librar.html/feed29Library in abandoned househttp://boingboing.net/2012/07/07/library-in-abandoned-house.html
http://boingboing.net/2012/07/07/library-in-abandoned-house.html#commentsSat, 07 Jul 2012 14:03:59 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=169931
I'm very taken with James Charlick's photo, "The Grand Library," shot in an abandoned house during an urban exploration expedition.

François Vautier infested his flatbed scanner with an ant-colony and scanned the burgeoning hive-organism every week for five years, producing a beautiful, stylized stop-motion record of the ants' slow consumption of his electronics.

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François Vautier infested his flatbed scanner with an ant-colony and scanned the burgeoning hive-organism every week for five years, producing a beautiful, stylized stop-motion record of the ants' slow consumption of his electronics.

Five years ago, I installed an ant colony inside my old scanner that allowed me to scan in high definition this ever evolving microcosm (animal, vegetable and mineral). The resulting clip is a close-up examination of how these tiny beings live in this unique ant farm. I observed how decay and corrosion slowly but surely invaded the internal organs of the scanner. Nature gradually takes hold of this completely synthetic environment.

http://boingboing.net/2012/03/09/time-lapse-video-of-an-ant-col.html/feed41Delicious rotten cheesehttp://boingboing.net/2012/01/06/delicious-rotten-cheese.html
http://boingboing.net/2012/01/06/delicious-rotten-cheese.html#commentsFri, 06 Jan 2012 21:46:57 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=137712and the cheese can be eaten" [Wikipedia]]]>and the cheese can be eaten" [Wikipedia]]]>http://boingboing.net/2012/01/06/delicious-rotten-cheese.html/feed46Airplane graveyardhttp://boingboing.net/2011/10/22/airplane-graveyard.html
http://boingboing.net/2011/10/22/airplane-graveyard.html#commentsSat, 22 Oct 2011 22:07:35 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=125248
Ransom Riggs's photo-essay on the airplane graveyard in the Mojave Desert features astounding imagery of ancient, rotting aviation hardware bleaching its bones in the desert sun.]]>
Ransom Riggs's photo-essay on the airplane graveyard in the Mojave Desert features astounding imagery of ancient, rotting aviation hardware bleaching its bones in the desert sun.

I thought it was a mirage the first time I saw it. I was driving through the wastes of the Mojave Desert, two hours from anywhere, when off in the shimmering distance appeared the silhouettes of a hundred parked jetliners. I pulled off and tried to get closer to them, but a mean-looking perimeter fence keeps onlookers far away. All I could do was stand and stare, wondering what the hell this massive armada of airplanes was doing here, silently baking in the 110 degree heat. For years afterward I’d ask people what they knew about it, and I kept hearing the same thing: the place has been on lockdown since 9/11, and they won’t let civilians anywhere near the boneyard. But last week my luck changed — I met a very nice fellow who works there, and with a minimum of cajoling on my part he agreed to take me beyond the high-security fence and show me around. Of course, I brought my camera.

http://boingboing.net/2011/10/22/airplane-graveyard.html/feed29Rustbelt ghost-towns: Ruins of Gary, Indianahttp://boingboing.net/2011/07/26/rustbelt-ghost-towns-ruins-of-gary-indiana.html
http://boingboing.net/2011/07/26/rustbelt-ghost-towns-ruins-of-gary-indiana.html#commentsTue, 26 Jul 2011 12:49:10 +0000http://boingboing.net/?p=110683
Many American rustbelt cities are contracting radically as we enter the second decade of life in a WTO world, where industrial production has moved to China, India, and other developing nations. This has created a new kind of American ghost-town, on the outskirts of once-thriving midwestern cities -- or, in the worst cases, in pockets right in the middle of town. David Tribby has documented some of the ruined areas of Gary, IN in a book called Gary Indiana | A City's Ruins. Dark Roasted Blend has a gallery of some of the photos from Tribby's book, along with a potted history of the town's rise and fall.

Gary, Indiana, back then, was still a good place, a productive place. Founded in 1906, it was a gleaming city built of, and because of, steel. Quite literally, in fact; while other cities may have been at the intersections of trails or roads, rivers and rivers, or where sea met land, Gary was built by and for U.S. Steel and even christened for that corporation's founder.

For decades, Gary was as tough and resilient as the metals it produced. It survived the Great Depression, it fought off the war years, and it forged and pressed through the 1950s. But during the 1960s, its gleaming life's blood—steel—proved to be its undoing when the industry began to wane, then almost totally collapse, due to cheaper manufacturing overseas.